The Spectator: The betrayal of the Anglican communion

The Church of England has just made itself totally irrelevant to the defence of civilisation. It appears to have rallied to the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has managed to turn his famed unintelligibility into his salvation. According to Times Online, he blamed himself for causing ‘misunderstanding’ among the public at large. This is obviously much more disarming than accusing the public of being too stupid to understand, but it amounts to the same defence — that there was nothing wrong in the substance of what he actually said. Once again, he repeated that he was

not talking about parallel jurisdictions

— but then went on to show that this was indeed the inescapable meaning of what he was saying:

The question remains of whether certain additional choices could and should be made available under the law of the United Kingdom for resolving disputes and regulating transactions. It would be analogous to what is already possible in terms of the legal recognition of certain kinds of financial transactions under Islamic regulation, including special provision around mortgage arrangements.

Once again, therefore, Dr Williams has displayed the cognitive dissonance which has been evident since he delivered his lecture — saying things the implications of which he appears not to understand and indeed promptly denies. But now the backlash against the backlash is well under way, and the Synod displayed as usual the intellectual rigour of a sponge by giving this absurd incoherence a standing ovation. Read more
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